Interesting, my company is involved in a grant with the National Science Foundation to produce a multimedia database primarily for medical information which is all professionally cataloged so as to accept/reject submitted multimedia based on the quality and accuracy of the information the contributor provides. Anyway the goal is to give educators and students a place to share and find information with 100% signal, and no noise. It uses an established, focused, and standard vocabulary (Medical Subject Headings) as well as the usual keyword-based searching.
Good question -- also I wonder how much of it was anti-Roddenbury.
Try "pre- or post- Roddenberry"
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Re:At this point, it's vapor.
on
Java For BeOS
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· Score: 1
Essentially (and sadly, perhaps), I think you're right. This 'big announcement' is really nothing more than a statement of intentions to support Java, which is something we have heard before.
From the article: Simon (bu): Well I am happy to announce that beunited.org is officially working on porting the Java 2 Standard Edition to BeOS
There is reason to be optimistic that we'll see it actually happen, though, as Simon claims that they now "have a full working build system under BeOS." (although what a 'full working build system' is is somewhat ambiguous).
I don't suppose there's much to be done about this news except to keep watching. Like you say, I'll believe it when I see it -- but this news does give me hope.
I can't find it on The Onion's website, but this article reminded me of a recent 'News in Brief' article titled Lazy FDA Approves X-Ray Vision Pills
WASHINGTON, DC--Citing the hot weather and a desire to go home for the day, FDA officials approved American Products Limited's "X-Ray Vision Pills" for commercial sale in the U.S. Monday. "After evaluating this and regulating that for months, we were really dying to cut out early, so we were all just like, 'Fuck it. Let's just approve this,'" FDA deputy commissioner Lester Crawford said. "Besides, nobody could think of a real good reason why X-ray-vision pills would be unsafe."
More and more I'm finding that just as all conversations can find comparisons to episodes of The Simpsons, references to The Onion are becoming just as easy to make. I fear for a future saturated with constant references to pop culture. *looks around* uh oh...
The problem with scientists of tommorrow is that they're hard to contact since they're always a day ahead of us. You'd probably have better luck contacting the scientists that are around today (especially if you need it now).
I've never tried it, but are you suggesting that sleeping on the blunt end of a pencil will "disintegrate the parts [of my head], yielding little benefit". That IS a sobering thought.
The team winning the Judges' Prize will be awarded
Peer recognition: The contest judges agree to state at least once during the presentation of the awards that the winning team is comprised of a group of "extremely cool hackers."
Finally somebody besides my parents to tell me how cool I am!:)
I think that there needs to be a distinction in the law concerning the intent of the action. In a case such as this, the intent was obviously not to steal personal information, or to do harm, but it was for publicity and also to be a wake-up call to government IT departments to start taking their security more seriously.
Since the amount of personal information that the government is capable of gathering seems to be increasing, I don't believe it's an unreasonable expectation that security be increased as well. In cases where the security is so obviously lax, I would rather somebody inform them like this (maybe under some sort of digital security good samaritan law) than to let it go unnoticed.
"Money doesn't grow on trees"... but it DOES grow on alfalfa apparently.
I'm curious to know if this is a property specific to alfalfa, or if other plants have the same propensity towards extracting metals from the medium in which they grow. I could be living on property that's 'green gold' (if only I put all my grass clippings through extensive centrifuging).
Perhaps following the 'any publicity is good publicity' rule. While you and I may see this as negative, there are those out there who will see the article and think to themselves "Hey, I had no idea Starbucks offered a service like that!"
I wouldn't go so far as to say that the news article was an intentional advertisement -- but it may serve as one nonetheless.
One would hope that these two services could resolve their dispute amicably, because (as the article says) "they cater to completely different markets". What I find sad (or perhaps I should say typical) is that in the absence of a strict externally-imposed set of regulations, a company would rather do whatever they please without regard to others instead of doing what common courtesy/sense would dictate -- to play nice and share.
I would have to agree with the parent -- the best thing a project can have is a detailed design document. Not only will it help you judge the progress of your program, set milestones etc, but it also helps to show other potential developers where you are going with the project. Basically it can help you keep your project on track even when a single stubborn developer insists that they do something their way -- you can point to the design documents and have a basis for rejecting their idea(s).
Never be so rigid as to refuse any change in the design document whatsoever, though. If many people are wanting a feature, or want to take things in a different direction, then you have the choice to incorperate that into your project, or sit by and watch them fork it.
Managing projects is always tricky and there just aren't rigid rules that every project should follow. Well, maybe this one rule.. always try to be rational and logical about things rather than emotional. It sounds a lot easier than it actually is -- programmers get attached to their code and their ideas, and it can be hard to influence them to change when they make up their minds. If you try to approach things with as little bias as possible (while keeping your goals in mind), I think you'll do well in most any project.
No, the typical US car would be closer to 1136 gpm
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Re:When comments are more than comments...
on
Pet Bugs?
·
· Score: 1
That's an arguement against ASCII art in comments right there. To be honest, though, it seems as though that backslash should never get processed (the compiler should skip processing the line after the// comment begins), but then who has ever made a standards-conforming compiler, eh?<BR><BR>
I don't know a whole lot about the way that this system interacts with navigation in planes themselves, but I don't believe air traffic controllers guided those terrorist airplanes into the towers. So I don't see that your "blacker side" has any reasonable chance of occurring.
I would tend to agree with you -- however it goes both ways. I am in the middle of developing a project on SourceForge, and I have found that I've recieved a couple of emails containing sources (additions rather than fixes, though) which I have added, or am adding to my project.
If you follow my link, however, you'll notice that there are 4 developers for my project -- and yet I am the only person actively working on it. So the number of submissions I've received pretty much evens out with the number of people inactively listed as members of my project. I'm not saying this is the case for all projects, but it may be the case for many of them.
A few trained bees teach the beekeeper's bees in an impromptu training session
A voice over a megaphone exclaims "RELEASE THE BEES!"
And the reaction...?
People running and screaming from the building used to scream "There's a bomb in the building!" Now they will scream "There's a bomb and BEES in the building!"
From what little I know, any criminal who has been to jail has had access to a "manual probing station". IANAC (I Am Not A Criminal), but I think it's located in the showers.
Rinikusu said
My question is, why haven't we done this already?
It has been my observation that while there is a lot of collective angst on the internet and on Slashdot, very little of that energy is turned into a productive solution. People feel too powerless to affect the giant political machine of the United States -- and who could blame them? Any time that I have written to my senators, it has changed nothing. Any time that I have spoken up even in local government, it has changed nothing. It could be that it's because I live in a region dominated by conservatives, but even so I would hope that reason (MY reason.. heh) would win out. Maybe the majority does want a draconian government to rule them with an iron fist...
I don't know how true that really is. I remember reading about a study in which fighter pilots were able to identify the make of a plane flashed in front of them in 1/200 of a second. I wish I could pull up the link, but google's pigeons aren't finding it this morning.
And exactly how does this differ from any other "Giant Corporation wins over Small Guy in court". I don't support the small guy in this case (the right people DID win), but I would hardly call it a surprising result. The trick is to get the Giant Corperations to fight on the side of the common good, which is what occurred here.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting, my company is involved in a grant with the National Science Foundation to produce a multimedia database primarily for medical information which is all professionally cataloged so as to accept/reject submitted multimedia based on the quality and accuracy of the information the contributor provides. Anyway the goal is to give educators and students a place to share and find information with 100% signal, and no noise. It uses an established, focused, and standard vocabulary (Medical Subject Headings) as well as the usual keyword-based searching.
Reinventing the wheel, it seems (sigh).
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is pre- or pro- Roddenbury?
Good question -- also I wonder how much of it was anti-Roddenbury.
Try "pre- or post- Roddenberry"
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There is reason to be optimistic that we'll see it actually happen, though, as Simon claims that they now "have a full working build system under BeOS." (although what a 'full working build system' is is somewhat ambiguous). I don't suppose there's much to be done about this news except to keep watching. Like you say, I'll believe it when I see it -- but this news does give me hope.
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Your point is well-made that those particular arguments fail to hold water under scrutiny. How would you explain THIS evidence, though?
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If you wish to use the post as your frame of reference, you're still never going to get it now. :)
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The problem with scientists of tommorrow is that they're hard to contact since they're always a day ahead of us. You'd probably have better luck contacting the scientists that are around today (especially if you need it now).
-Sou|cuttr
I've never tried it, but are you suggesting that sleeping on the blunt end of a pencil will "disintegrate the parts [of my head], yielding little benefit". That IS a sobering thought.
-Sou|cuttr
-Sou|cuttr
I think that there needs to be a distinction in the law concerning the intent of the action. In a case such as this, the intent was obviously not to steal personal information, or to do harm, but it was for publicity and also to be a wake-up call to government IT departments to start taking their security more seriously.
Since the amount of personal information that the government is capable of gathering seems to be increasing, I don't believe it's an unreasonable expectation that security be increased as well. In cases where the security is so obviously lax, I would rather somebody inform them like this (maybe under some sort of digital security good samaritan law) than to let it go unnoticed.
-Sou|cuttr
"Money doesn't grow on trees"... but it DOES grow on alfalfa apparently.
I'm curious to know if this is a property specific to alfalfa, or if other plants have the same propensity towards extracting metals from the medium in which they grow. I could be living on property that's 'green gold' (if only I put all my grass clippings through extensive centrifuging).
-Sou|cuttr
Perhaps following the 'any publicity is good publicity' rule. While you and I may see this as negative, there are those out there who will see the article and think to themselves "Hey, I had no idea Starbucks offered a service like that!"
I wouldn't go so far as to say that the news article was an intentional advertisement -- but it may serve as one nonetheless.
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I think that summed it up rather nicely.
One would hope that these two services could resolve their dispute amicably, because (as the article says) "they cater to completely different markets". What I find sad (or perhaps I should say typical) is that in the absence of a strict externally-imposed set of regulations, a company would rather do whatever they please without regard to others instead of doing what common courtesy/sense would dictate -- to play nice and share.
Clearly I am no businessman.
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I'm not sure why, but I find it amusing to picture the author trying to find bugs in Valgrind, actually using Valgrind.
Perhaps it shouldn't seem as funny to me in days when Subversion is self-hosting, and GCC compiles itself.
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I would have to agree with the parent -- the best thing a project can have is a detailed design document. Not only will it help you judge the progress of your program, set milestones etc, but it also helps to show other potential developers where you are going with the project. Basically it can help you keep your project on track even when a single stubborn developer insists that they do something their way -- you can point to the design documents and have a basis for rejecting their idea(s).
Never be so rigid as to refuse any change in the design document whatsoever, though. If many people are wanting a feature, or want to take things in a different direction, then you have the choice to incorperate that into your project, or sit by and watch them fork it.
Managing projects is always tricky and there just aren't rigid rules that every project should follow. Well, maybe this one rule.. always try to be rational and logical about things rather than emotional. It sounds a lot easier than it actually is -- programmers get attached to their code and their ideas, and it can be hard to influence them to change when they make up their minds. If you try to approach things with as little bias as possible (while keeping your goals in mind), I think you'll do well in most any project.
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Indeed -- look closely at the side of the white vehicle if you want to know how people will view you if they see you driving one of them.
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No, the typical US car would be closer to 1136 gpm
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That's an arguement against ASCII art in comments right there. To be honest, though, it seems as though that backslash should never get processed (the compiler should skip processing the line after the // comment begins), but then who has ever made a standards-conforming compiler, eh?<BR><BR>
*grin* Good one.<BR><BR>
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I don't know a whole lot about the way that this system interacts with navigation in planes themselves, but I don't believe air traffic controllers guided those terrorist airplanes into the towers. So I don't see that your "blacker side" has any reasonable chance of occurring.
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I would tend to agree with you -- however it goes both ways. I am in the middle of developing a project on SourceForge, and I have found that I've recieved a couple of emails containing sources (additions rather than fixes, though) which I have added, or am adding to my project.
If you follow my link, however, you'll notice that there are 4 developers for my project -- and yet I am the only person actively working on it. So the number of submissions I've received pretty much evens out with the number of people inactively listed as members of my project. I'm not saying this is the case for all projects, but it may be the case for many of them.
-Sou|cuttr
- A bomb threat is called in
- The local beekeeper is called
- A few trained bees teach the beekeeper's bees in an impromptu training session
- A voice over a megaphone exclaims "RELEASE THE BEES!"
And the reaction...?People running and screaming from the building used to scream "There's a bomb in the building!"
Now they will scream "There's a bomb and BEES in the building!"
-Sou|cuttr
From what little I know, any criminal who has been to jail has had access to a "manual probing station". IANAC (I Am Not A Criminal), but I think it's located in the showers.
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</pessimism>
I guess we keep trying, though.
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I don't know how true that really is. I remember reading about a study in which fighter pilots were able to identify the make of a plane flashed in front of them in 1/200 of a second. I wish I could pull up the link, but google's pigeons aren't finding it this morning.
-Sou|cuttr
And exactly how does this differ from any other "Giant Corporation wins over Small Guy in court". I don't support the small guy in this case (the right people DID win), but I would hardly call it a surprising result. The trick is to get the Giant Corperations to fight on the side of the common good, which is what occurred here.
-Sou|cuttr